In general, the $FAMOUS_DEAD_AUTHOR estate can go fuck itself; such things usually exist for rent-seeking and nothing else. This is especially egregious, though, and there's probably a law against making baseless trademark threats in bad faith. Which the Tolkien estate can ignore with impunity because the legal system is scary for most people, and always inconvenient.<p>In happier news, though, copies of the banned buttons are now on sale from someone else. The Streisand effect works.
The best comment on that post is this by AngusM:<p>---<p>“Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know … and they guard the plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed, they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of current market value; and they can’t make a thing for themselves …” ["The Hobbit", J.R.R. Tolkien]
After registering thehobbitmovies.com I received a not too friendly letter from the Tolkien estate instructing me to hand over the domain.<p>I declined their request and may put a site up at some point. For now it is a reminder that it is easy for people to tell you do something they do not have a right to tell you.
What he should do is file a DMCA counter-notification, which would require Zazzle to restore the product unless the Tolkien estate files suit within 10 days:<p><a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html</a>
Honest question: does the Tolkien Estate have any legal grounding here ?<p>The way I look at it, if there was legal grounding, it might be a little quirky, as technically we won't be able to even mention any copyrighted/trademarked brand in casual texts. Imagine reviewing products and getting a take down notice at the end of that ? Doesn't make sense to me.
My reaction is: So?<p>As a fan of both Tolkien and Evangelion, I find this sentiment to be pointless and tinged with misplaced agression.<p>You wonder why you should care about Tolkien? Why should we care that you care?
I will make 3 statements:<p>1) hacker news has become www.reddit.com/r/nerdstuff<p>2) “Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.” Niccolo Machiavelli<p>A lot of energy is being put into user driven content, which seems to start of useful but end up becoming crap. There must be an opportunity in there somewhere.<p>3) someone reply to my post with "this." so i can move on from this site, and find something useful to do.